Monthly Archives: April 2012

Today has seen several new releases, including Châteaux Beau-Séjour-Bécot, a wine from St-Emilion that shows exactly why the Right Bank is so well thought of in this vintage, Doisy-Daëne and Ormes de Pez. 2011 Château Doisy-Daëne, Cru Classé Barsac £147 per case of 6 bottles in bond £156 per case of 12 half bottles in […]

After a day of near-silence yesterday, three releases to start today, including Château Suduiraut. The 2011 vintage is definitely one that has played into the hands of Sauternes and Barsac producers, giving them ideal conditions for the development of the botrytis that gives these wines their distinctive character. Fresh and pure, yet enticingly complex, these […]

As the 2011 Bordeaux en-primeur campaign starts rumbling, we jumped at the opportunity to get our last fix of fine Burgundy for the next couple of months by presenting a 2007 Burgundy tasting in Coutts’swish office on the Strand. The 2007 vintage in Burgundy saw summer conditions in the spring (over 30 degrees in April) […]

Calon-Ségur has been going from strength to strength over the past few years, and young winemaker Vincent Millet’s expertise and talent have a lot to do with this. This knowledge is put to excellent use in the property’s second wine, Marquis de Calon (never offered en-primeur before) and the other St Estèphe property he manages, […]

Around the time of the en primeur tastings in Bordeaux, Christophe Salin, director of Barons de Rothschild was very forthright about the way in which pricing would work this year, indicating that there should be a substantial cut in price for this wine compared with last year. “With Lafite we have the luxury of being […]

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Château Charmail is always a popular wine in any vintage and the 2011 should be no different, offering classically proportioned claret at a very good price indeed. 2011 Château Charmail, Cru Bourgeois Haut-Médoc £120 per case of 12 bottles in bond Darkly fragrant on the nose, with notes of bramble and cassis fruit coming […]

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Today saw the release of two of the big Châteaux, with our release of 2011 Lafite-Rothschild and Cos d’Estournel, as well as Gazin, an ever popular Pomerol. Lafite-Rothschild (£2799 for 6 bottles in bond) has been offered primarily to those clients who have expressed interest, however, please let us know if you are interested in […]

Today has been the proverbial “game of two halves”, with releases of both Cru Bourgeois, La Tour de By and First Growth, Lafite-Rothschild. Lafite’s release price this year seems to offer a reasonable reduction on last year’s, but there is also less availability than last year. We are currently waiting to consolidate our allocation from […]

It has been announced today by Château Latour that the 2011 vintage will be the last that they will be offering en primeur. This was reported on wine critic James Suckling’s blog this afternoon and has apparently since been confirmed by negociants in the region, who received a letter from the Château today. While not […]

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The weather and its effects I witnessed first hand the topsy-turvy weather conditions, which made 2011 such a challenge for the vignerons; I was sunburnt and hot during the en-primeur tastings of the first week in April, rained on and distinctly chilly in August and then overheated again during my annual harvest visit in September. […]